The water levels in Swan Lake are high enough to spill over on the campus of Lemmon Valley Elementary School, so Washoe County School District put up a fence to keep kids away from the standing water.
They put the fence up about three weeks ago, then they noticed water on the lowest levels of the property. The district is monitoring the water with the help of Washoe County Public Works and the Washoe County Health District, the latter of which is testing the water.
"As they do all bodies of water for mosquitoes and other obnoxious pests," Chief Facilities Management Officer for WCSD says, "There are some midge flies out there which can be a nuisance, but they don't bite, don't sting, don't transmit diseases."
Since they put the fence up, they've had to move it closer to the building. Still Searcy says less than 25 percent of the playground area is off limits.
"There's ample safe area for them all to play outdoors," Searcy says. "It won't impair our ability to hold classes."
He also says the water has a ways to go before reaching the building.
"We do have over two feet of buffer," Searcy says. The two is how much lake levels would have to rise to reach the building, not the lateral distance from the building right now. "And we feel the safe and appropriate response this time is to let the water do its thing and stay out of it."
Searcy says there's a decent chance the fence remains up the rest of the year, and they plan to continue monitoring the water with help from Washoe County.
"Really end of April into mid-May, you'll start to see evaporation overcoming precipitation of runoff," Searcy says. "You'll start to see that receding."
Kids are always supervised while on recess, and the district has no reports of kids getting into the water.
We spoke with multiple parents while they were picking up their kids from school Monday, and they all said they are not concerned with the standing water.
